Change

You try hard to organise your family so that you can all be happy, stable and fulfilled.

Lists. Diaries. Star charts. Project plans. Spreadsheets.

And for a little while, order comes to your household. Life becomes smoother, sweeter. You and your kids head out the door every morning feeling happy, feeling like you’re in control. You’ve got this.

Speed bumps are tiny, bills are paid, lunches are packed.

Then, life happens. Someone gets sick, someone works late, someone has a meltdown. Or you get tired. So tired. So tired you ache.

By the end of the day, all you can do is pull into a drive through and stagger home. Dinner comes in a cardboard box.

You feel like you’ve failed. But you haven’t. It’s not you.

There are three good reasons why these big, muscular systems don’t work when it comes to managing your home. And it’s nothing to do with you. It’s to do with the thinking behind the systems.

Firstly, the whole notion of total, sweeping change comes from traditional industrial management approaches. In the ego-driven jungle of the business world, the gorilla who can shout the loudest is the alpha. And demanding a drastic, radical change is a great way of establishing who is the boss.

Second, this approach is based on a command and control, military model. Someone barks out orders, and everyone jumps. Which works great with adults, who are already socialized, and depend on the organization for their livelihood. With kids? Not so much.

And thirdly, all these GTD-style approaches assume that behind the scenes, someone else is doing all the maintenance work. The ‘invisible’ stuff. Cleaning the toilet, cooking the meals, folding the towels. While the ‘real’ players Get Things Done.

In your world, the person doing all this ‘invisible work’ is you.

You are physically inhabiting two worlds and doing the emotional and practical work for both.

Don’t believe me? Imagine if people behaved at work like your children do at home.

Does your boss ever have someone run up behind him, grab him and rub their snot on the back of his legs? Does a manager ever fall on the floor and start screaming, because the food on their plate touches each other? Does a worker ever shout “You’re so mean!” stamp out of a meeting and throw themselves onto a couch?

You are raising beloved but irrational little beings with limited attention spans and no social skills. Office rules do not apply. Office thinking will never, ever give you what you want.

An ordered home, a place where everyone feels safe. A sense of confidence about your future.

But there is other thinking. Another way of managing life. Of organizing all those daily routines so that they flow. So that when things go wrong, the system just adapts and chugs along.

There are different terms for it. Small changes, kaizen. And there’s a whole body of work that proves it works. It makes a tiny difference, but a lasting one. Then another, and another. And before you now it, you’re back to enjoying your mornings. Keep reading to find out more. Or explore a blog category to try out some tips.

Small, steady improvements have been proven to work better than large scale, sweeping change. There’s a raft of studies done which talk about reducing decision making, making tiny changes and reflecting on behaviour.

But, you don’t have to read all those. Because I already have. And, I’ve tried them out for myself.

Think of me as your Tiny Changes Crash Test Dummy.

So, how does it work?

These three ways.

First of all, because tiny changes are not a threat, your subconscious resistance stays asleep. Your subconscious resistance is there to protect you, to spot threats and to keep you safe. Which is great – but doesn’t help if you want to change. So a tiny change will just sneak on past, without even stirring the beast.

Secondly, trying out a tiny change is not a big deal. The stakes are lowered. You can relax, and try it, while thinking “If this doesn’t work, so what? No sweat.” There’s no skin off your nose. So you’re more inclined to give it a go if there’s nothing to lose.

And lastly, it’s easy to recover from setbacks. Say, for example, that you start a new change, and after a while, you begin to feel a lot better. Or something untoward happens. So you stop. And then, dammit, the mess piles up or the stress levels rise again. No worries.

Because the change is so tiny, you can just pick it up and start again, and get back on the horse.

Most importantly, because you’re keeping an eye on your own behaviour, you can test this out for yourself. You can decide to try one thing for a week, and see how you feel. In the process, you’ll become aware of your own thinking and beliefs around routines and habits.

Congratulations. You’re beginning to think a different way.

And that’s what will make it last.

Just be careful. Setbacks are normal. It’s how you handle them that will count.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, here’s how you pave your road.

You get sick of feeling overwhelmed, muster up some energy, or panic, and make a change.

Instantly, you feel relief. Hope begins to glimmer on the horizon. You begin to feel better, and your energy levels rise.

So you tackle a whole heap of other changes. But now, you have so many balls in the air, that you get overwhelmed. And then, all the changes fall over.

And you become really discouraged. You think “What’s the use?” You feel hopeless, like no matter what you do, it doesn’t work out. You blame yourself. Your energy levels drop. You let things slide and then chaos looms.

Something important goes wrong. Now you feel panic. So you make a change …

You need something to bump this cycle out of the rut. A tiny experience of success is all it takes. Just a small feeling of achievement, a tiny step towards looking after yourself, and your whole world begins to shift.

Here’s how to take it slowly, and make tiny changes that stick. To create a new way of being that becomes your natural state.

You need this new process. Make a tiny change. So tiny, it’s laughable. In fact, you should think to yourself “THAT won’t make any difference.” This way, the stakes are low. You’re not stringing yourself onto the line.

Now, gently observe the result. How does this change feel? Do you feel better? Take some time to enjoy feeling better. Talk to me about feeling better. Talk to us all at the More Fun for Mom FB group about feeling better. Compare notes. Gloat. Brag a little. You’re among friends.

And the hardest part? This really sorts out the women from the girls.

Make NO MORE changes for at least two weeks. Seriously. This weeny wee change needs a chance to send down roots, to get stable, to become the new ‘normal’. Time for you to try and see what happens when you stop. So you’ve got more data. You’ve proven to yourself that it works.

Then, make a second, tiny change. And away you go. Keep reading to see how it all works.